...when bringing a child into the world is possibly the most selfish thing there is. What could possibly be more self-serving than "you know what this world could use? An extra dose of me and my genetic material to unleash and eventually have to fend for itself."
15 Comments
hOrni@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 5d
Considering the state of the world, it's selfish to force a child to live in it, just because You wanted a cute baby to play with for a couple of months.
stoy@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 5d
Not only that, getting a kid is among the most environmentally destructive things you can do.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 5 pts · 5d
See my other comment for more, but yes. It's selfish to bring new life into the world for your personal wants when there are already so many who need loving homes.
UnequalExchange@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
Thats one of the things that got me fucked up the about people who choose to not be childfree.
We have confirmed that there are dozens of thousands of unadopted minors RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW in almost all countries already... and yet ...breeders choose to ignore these minors who also need a parents' love and just make their own? Why?!
What makes these certain unadopted minors so evil that they dont ALSO deserve a parent's love?
acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 5d
i am happily child free, but i acknowledge that i need other people to have children to preserve society. so i don’t think having (1-3) children is automatically selfish, although there are certainly people that take it way too far.
kettuli@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 5d
I’d be open to the idea of slow-rolling the end of humanity via ending procreation. We’ve showed what we can do, let the whales have a go.
UnequalExchange@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5d
I think scientists have estimated that itll most likely either be the dolphins or the chimpanzees that takes over im a couple dozen million years probably.
kettuli@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5d
Whichever it ends up being I hope them godspeed.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 7 pts · 5d
You have a hard take, and I agree with it. It takes some thinking but it's how I ended up thinking too.
If you think on it, why do you want to have your own kid? People tell me the joys of having a kid and watching them grow, etc etc. Then I think why not adopt then? There are so many children who will have those experiences too that need a loving home? That'd when the people I am talking to go silent or handwave that it's not the same.
So why isn't it the same? It boils down to you (the potential parents) want a specific kid. That's your choice and your want. That's where it becomes selfish. The parents have all these perfect thoughts and wants for the kid and right there it's now about the parents, and not about the kid.
If adoption wasn't seriously considered as a way to have a child, then hot take I say that you made a selfish decision. There's a thousand other ways too that it can be molded into a selfish decision, but that one right there is the clearest example I've seen.
UnequalExchange@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 5d
Your comment reminded me of another . I actually stole a comment from a redditor having to do with adoption. GOtta give props🫱🏿🫲🏾🤝🏿🫱🏻🫲🏿 to TechnicalTerm6 for this one. They said:
"Replying to some of the comments I've seen here from other folks.
One of the things that I see a lot of people don't understand when it comes to love and children, or love and other people, is:
There is a huge difference between loving someone because they get to have a relationship with you, and loving someone because you care about them as a person and what's best for them. The two of course can exist in the same space and in the same relationship, but unfortunately, they do not always.
The first is the kind where you love being around someone, and you want to have more time around them. It's one-sided to some extent. Perhaps they also like you, even a lot. But you are more focused on the fact that your life feels better with them in it, than on if they're happy or healthy.
The second is the kind of love where you don't really.... You step outside of the situation, and you do what is best for them because you care about them, even if what's best for them means not being around you. Or it's something you don't fully understand but you respect.
I'm not necessarily talking toxic positivity, religious, self-sacrificing, fall on your sword, type of love. I just mean the sort of thing where...
For example: you realize that in a romantic partnership, the other person is doing way more of the emotional labor and you realize you don't have the capacity to meet that and they are exhausted. You are willing to have that difficult conversation, even if it means it's helping them realize you might not be well suited together in the long term.
The trouble with folks who decide to create new people is they meld both types of love together, and believe they are always present together.
They say they love their kids, but in truth.... they love having kids more than anything else. They love their own expectations and thoughts of what the future relationship with the kids will be. They are willing to create beings and subject them to millions of risks, just so they can have these new people in their lives.
They don't actually love the kids as humans.
They don't want what's best for the kids.
They want the kids to be around them.
So when that kid is gay, or chooses a career they don't like, or starts to date someone they don't like. When that kid is neurodivergent or bullied a lot at school or the kid themself is abusive... Suddenly, they're shocked as if no other human on earth has ever been that way, as if it was all a surprise.
If people actually loved kids, they would fight to adopt or foster children. They would group together and fight back the difficult legislation that makes adoption and fostering challenging. They would get involved in community organizations or support health care. Or legislation or breakfast programs. They would work tirelessly to make the world a better place for all children.
But instead, they love their own DNA, culture, dreams, assumptions, religion, expectations, and playing dress up. They want "their own kids" aka biological ones.
They love the idea of a biological family that has been marketed and sold to them by hundreds of generations before them.... without actually looking at it analytically to see if it's a kind idea. Because analysis is hard, and making choices emotionally based on your own wants and to hell with everyone else, is easier."
UNICEF has confirmed that there are about 90 MILLION unadopted minors n globally. If you and your partner are looking for a 'mini-me' and you cant find them in almost 90 million kids ? YOu didnt search. And all minors are worthy of a parents' love....so why not any of these kids? Why do you have to creste your own special DNA goblin?
And also if you say to yourself 'I will love my biological children more if they come out as gay, come out as neurodivergent, come out as non-binary, or start dating someone outside our culture or someone yoy dont like, etc... (basically if your child do something you dont particularly approve of) than if they are an adopted child' then I dont think you have any right to be around any children. An adopted minor is still a minor at the end of the day. Minors all over the world , adopted or not, are all worthy of a parents' love to guide them and to shield them from the toxic elements of humanity, regardless of their decisions. And the IPCC has already confirmed that the birthing and life of a new human is the most environmentally damaging thing a person can do ....
And yet.... despite ALL of this we can see that humanity has never made a SUBSTANTIAL push towards adopting as many of these minors out here as possible... I believe this proves how selfish humanity can be when we start thinking about our 'bloodline' and its sad honestly.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 4d
It isn't even selfish. The progenitor isn't around to enjoy the millennia of eventual consequences. It's mindless, and I mean that literally. We come up with post hoc reasons for drives that are just injected into our minds by our biological substrate. The real reason people have babies is that they are functional organisms successfully following billions of years of programming. I'm proud to be a broken organism. Biology sucks.
UnequalExchange@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
"It is no measure of health to be seen as 'normal' or 'healthy' in socieites so profoundly sick"
UnequalExchange@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
And also one more thing. If a childfree person is 'selfish' as they say what benefit will they give the world by giving birth to a child and raisimg them? They will raise that child to be equally selfish OR they will selfishly not raise that kid correctly and create another deranged adult.
What does humanity gain from either of these situations?
OakTree@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 5d
Reminds me of this particular scene from the show Utopia. https://youtu.be/rcx-nf3kH_M
UnequalExchange@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5d
as brutal as the dialogue is and even though this is my first time seeing this scene its literally jumped up to one of my top 3 favorite scenes in any show in history.
I like scenes and things that have brutal honesty. I will NEVER be a fan of toxic positivity.
I do think he went waaay too far with k1lling the kid though... He probably should have suggested that the she tell the kid to not have kids of his own and that would have been as hard-hitting. (well I have never seen the show utopia so I dont know what the context for that man's cold character or this scene was but...)